This week I did a KWL on thanksgiving with my students. We started and ended each lesson with adding information and questions to our chart. I understood from this where the students understanding was starting during the unit (no one mentioned Pilgrims in our conversation). It also showed me where the students were interested in going with the Thanksgiving unit (they wanted to learn more about Squanto who they had learned about in Media this week). At the end of each lesson the L served as a time to summarize the things that we had learned in the lesson and allowed me to double check that the students had in fact met the objectives.
I also use nonverbal cues frequently to check for student understanding. this is a quick way that I can determine if the students need more examples or if they feel prepared to begin working independently. It is a quick way to get feedback to any yes or no question.
I also frequently ask the question "How did you get that answer?" and "what made you think of that?" as a way to understand my students internal thought process.
Don't you wish you were the person who invented the K-W-L chart? It captures so much of what we know about effective teaching and learning. One connection I made when I read your post was to one of the articles you cited in your most recent lesson plan. The author suggests that interest is a more important factor in learning than background knowledge. That was fascinating to me, but I can see the possibility. I wonder if there's a way to add a column to the K-W-L chart that measures students' interest in the topic. I've seen teachers add a fourth column titled "Q" to track questions students have after a learning "episode". I like that one a lot.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the nonverbal cues you use to check for student thinking. What's an example? You might want to read what I posted in response to Nicole and Meggie about checking students' thinking through non-written activities.